Airplanes, cats, guns, war, the more than occasional rant about the kleptocracy of The Hair Furor and his party of the Confederacy, the spinelessness of the Democraps and ramblings about anything else that flits through the somewhat offbeat mind of an armed lesbian pinko as she slides down the Razor Blade of Life.Caveat lector.

Words of Advice:

"Never Feel Sorry For Anyone Who Owns an Airplane."-- Tina Marie

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

"Flying the Airplane is More Important than Radioing Your Plight to a Person on the GroundWho is Incapable of Understanding or Doing Anything About It." -- Unknown

"There seems to be almost no problem that Congress cannot, by diligent efforts and careful legislative drafting, make ten times worse." -- Me

"What the hell is an `Aluminum Falcon'?" -- Emperor Palpatine

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

Friday, September 9, 2016

"Quantity has a Quality All of Its Own"

That's the rationale for churning out a lot of weapons as cheap as possible.

Another one is: "Perfect is the enemy of the 'good enough'."

The Liberty ships were a fine example of that. Problems were acceptable in wartime when the idea was to build cargo ships very quickly due to the losses in the Battle of the Atlantic. The B-29s were rushed through with teething problems, the early ones were known for engine fires. P-39s and P-400s were crappy fighters, though the Soviets made good use of them.

And, of course, the prime example is the T-34 tank, of which the Soviets made over 55,000. The Americans made almost as many Shermans.*

Which means that, eight years after the first one was commissioned, only one Independence-class LCS is in active service (and undergoing repairs from shock trials) and only one Freedom-class LCS is in active service (in repairs from an engineering casualty).

Fucking pitiful.

In that time, Bath has commissioned five DDG-51s and Ingalls three. The Navy has bought fourteen more of them. The LCSs take two crews to run, which is close to 200 officers and sailors. A DDG-51 takes over 300, but what the hell, they work and they're manned like warships (one crew per).

In short, a traditional warship is family. A multi-crewed warship is a whore. And they are both treated about as you'd expect.

Our circle-jerk of a congress, of course, doesn't seem to give a fuck. LockMart and Austal are making bank and, well, you know how the corporate welfare department at Ft. Fumble operates.
_______________________________________* The Germans, in comparison, made less than 2,000 Tiger tanks and 44,000 other tanks during the entire war, a number doubled by the Americans alone. The British made about 38,000 and used most of the Lend-Lease Shermans. The Soviets used Shermans and, besides the T-34, made about 10,000 other tanks.

I wasn't a bubblehead. From what I was privately told, yes, there were problems. It was easy for animosity to build up between the two crews, especially over things such as cleanliness and equipment condition. A lot of that was alleviated because the Navy threw the kind of money into FBM upkeep and maintenance that they'd never throw into any surface ship (now that the nuke cruisers are gone).

Rule No. 5: Terms of Service: Political appointees of the Obama and Bush Administrations may not read this blog unless they (i) post a comment confessing same and (ii) acknowledge that both men are war criminals. This blog may not be read by members of the Arizona Legislature.

Violation of this term is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C) and you're off to share a cell with Chris Christie, asswipe.

Rule No. 6: If I wanted you to write a "guest post", I'd ask you. Don't bother asking me to put one up from you. I won't. Start yer own goddamn blog.You Have Been Warned.